Being Grateful For Non-Material Riches

"I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite — only a sense of existence. ... O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment."

These words from "The Journal of Henry David Thoreau" pretty much sum up my thinking during my best moments. In my normal routine, however, I'm not content to ruminate on the indefiniteness of existence. What I want then is time. Time to meet the deadlines I impose on myself.

Note that Thoreau uses the word grateful rather than the word thankful. This parallels my thinking because the word thankful doesn't make literal sense. Because we cannot thank ourselves, being full of thanks requires that someone else has sent thanks our way. In contrast, the word grateful does make literal sense because gratitude arises from within. Only when my gratitude meter has hit the full mark on some topic do I overflow and become able to give thanks.

This got me thinking about how many other words in the English language are based on the concept of becoming full: grateful, graceful, hopeful, hateful, willful, woeful, etc. Only when we are full of these things does our cup runneth over, and the surplus begins to move outward into society.

So why is it that some people (including me) seldom reach the full mark on their gratitude meter for love, material wealth, accomplishment or respect? My pat answer is that we have trouble managing our expectations. This raises the broader question: What should any of us expect?

First, we must learn to distinguish needs from wants. Most of what we think we need is actually what we want. True human needs are elemental, the biological and psychological imperatives for water, food, shelter, love, freedom and self-expression. Everything above that is an expectation that may or may not be met.

Second, we must keep in mind that each of us has a unique and interactive constellation of expectations that arise from within. No parent, friend, editor, neighbor or advertiser can tell us what it is we want. That we must decide for ourselves.

Now comes the trickiest part. So I'll begin with an analogy. You're cruising down a nearly empty interstate, late for some appointment or rendezvous. How do you decide the right speed? The answer is that you optimize between two competing variables. If you go too fast you get pulled over by a trooper. If you go too slowly, the cost of being late escalates. Similarly, each of us must optimize between the goal of setting the highest expectations we are capable of meeting vs. the goal of actually meeting them.

This internal optimization procedure — which goes on yearly, daily, and hourly — must also take randomness into account. How many times have we fallen short of our expectations due to some unforeseen event? Or switched from one expectation to another? To keep our expectations in line, we must develop a great tolerance for randomness.

Finally, we must not confuse dreams with expectations. Here, the analogy involves the difference between a mineral resource and a mineral reserve, respectively. A resource is a commodity that might someday be useful under the right conditions. A reserve is some quantified portion of the larger resource that is extractable under current technological, political and economic conditions. Consider, for example, the Bakken Formation of western North Dakota. What had been a resource is now a proven oil reserve. The century-old dream of developing it has become an expectation of lower fuel prices and energy independence.

In short: Keep your dreams so that they might someday become expectations. Simplify your expectations rather than lower them. Then, when your cup of gratitude overflows, it will pour thanks outward, so that others may become full of your thanks. Thankful.